September 7, 1888.] 



SCIENCE 



•'5 



damental reform of the methods of teaching geography. Most of 

 the scientists who were appointed professors were originally not 

 well acquainted with the needs of the Gymnasium and of other 

 higher schools. They were so much engrossed by their subject as 

 to be too exacting in their demands upon the pupil. These exces- 

 sive demands, however, found their corrective when their students 

 became experienced teachers. Thus the methods of teaching geog- 

 raphy, after about twenty years of discussion, have been established 

 on a firm and sound basis. 



While material progress was thus being made in Germany, Eng- 

 land and America had not even made the slightest attempt to bring 

 about the much-needed improvement in the teaching of geography. 

 A few years ago the attention of the Royal Geographical Society 

 was called to this subject, and a thorough study of the methods 

 used on the continent, particularly in Germany, was published. 

 Here, also, the movement began among scientists, not among teach- 

 ers ; and therefore we observe again that too much was asked for. 

 Since that time the movement has reached the schools, and innum- 

 erable attempts have been made to find a 'royal road' to the 

 knowledge of geography. ^Ye may divide these into two classes: 

 the first embracing suggestions of geographers or geologists ; the 

 second, those of teachers. While among the first class we find 

 highly suggestive books which show that geography might be made 

 the foundation of teaching natural science, they are deficient in not 

 being written by experienced teachers. The second class shows the 

 sad lack of trained teachers of geography, and the necessity that a 

 reform of the teaching of geography must begin with training teach- 

 ers. 



Recently a number of valuable books have been published in 

 England, but in America little has been done. Text-book after 

 text-book and map after map are being published, but the new 

 ones are in no way superior to the preceding ones. Since Guyot 

 imported Ritter's ideas of geography into this country, the study 

 has continued to move on this line, wherever it was more than 

 mere memorizing of names. That geography which has recently 

 developed in Europe has not reached our continent ; the tendency 

 here being to cultivate all the sciences contiguous to geography, 

 while the complex geographical phenomenon does not attract the 

 attention of the American scientist. 



It seems to us that Parker's book marks a new step in the develop- 

 ment of geography in our country. It is the first time that a lead- 

 ing educationist tries to solve the question how to study geography, 

 and gives it its proper place in the course of study. Although not 

 a geographer himself, and although a number of his statements are 

 not in correspondence with the views held by geographers nowa- 

 days, he has a true conception of the ultimate aim of geography. 

 " The study of geography, elementary and scientific, cultivates 

 systematically the faculty of imagination, and the products of this 

 faculty arouse and develop at every step emotions of beauty that 

 culminate in the emotion of grandeur. The mentally pictured hill 

 is ' a thing of beauty,' which, in time, towers up into the grand 

 image of the lofty mountain. The lake is the inception of a pic- 

 ture of 'old ocean's solitary waste.' Gradually, under skilful 

 leaching, hills, mountains, and plains, oceans and continents, are 

 united in one sublime image of the round world. Life-bearing and 

 life-giving, it stands out before the exalted imagination." This 

 view is fundamental in giving geography its proper place in school 

 and in life. It is not the sole object of geography to analyze obser- 

 vations, and thus to train the mental power of the child, although it 

 is well adapted to this purpose : its more important function is to 

 ttain the imagination and the power of feeling, to bring home the 

 grand truth of the unity of nature. 



This being the concept of the book, Parker omits physiography, 

 which is the favorite subject of many writers of school-geographies, 

 altogether, and defines geography as purely and simply a descrip- 

 tion of the earth's surface ; and the primary purpose of teaching 

 geography, to develop in the pupil's mind a concept corresponding 

 to the earth's surface. 



The book opens with a general introduction on the aim and 

 scope of teaching geography. This is followed by a chapter in- 

 tended to aid teachers in laying out their plans for teaching. The 

 third part is an outline of a course of study of eleinentary geography, 

 which is followed by very interesting directions and suggestions. 



The rest of the book is taken up by notes on the course of study. 

 We do not intend to enter into the details of this plan, but confine: 

 ourselves to a few remarks. Parker's directions on the use of maps 

 ought to be read and borne in mind by every teacher. There are 

 very few persons who are able to interpret a map; and teachers 

 ought to bear in mind constantly the fact that the map only repre- 

 sents part of the earth's surface, and that its object in teaching is 

 exclusively to convey the concept corresponding to the country it 

 represents. In order to reach this end, Parker strongly advocates 

 moulding and the use of relief-maps, although he is aware of the 

 serious ol)jections raised to this method. Until better school-maps 

 are provided, it will be iin possible to dispense with this means of 

 teaching. 



The course of study which he recommends begins, of course, 

 with systematic observations of nature, of the surroundings of the 

 child. Thus the concepts of the natural features and elements of 

 land and water are gained ; and, these once obtained, he rightly 

 turns at once to considering the widest generalizations, the conti- 

 nents, and works the detail into their general outline. It may 

 seem doubtful whether his widest generalizations, slopes and river- 

 basins, are the best from a geographical point of view. He con- 

 siders the continents as formed of a short and long slope, and next 

 subdivides the slopes and adds the necessary detail. This method 

 fails in the case of Africa, and seems undesirable in teaching the 

 geography of North America and Asia and their large plateaus. 

 But Parker himself does not consider the course suggested in his 

 book as final. There will probably be much discussion regarding 

 detail, and on the important question, ' In how far, if the principal 

 generalizations are derived from form, should the origin and develop- 

 ment of that form be considered ? ' But a careful study of this im- 

 portant book will not fail to exert a most wholesome influence upon 

 the progress of geography in our schools, and it may be that it will 

 open the road to that science of geography which has so far hardly 

 any representatives in America. 



The History of Protective Tariff Laius. By R. W. Thompson. 

 Chicago, R. S. Peale & Co. 



This book is not to be taken seriously as a history of the tariffs 

 Of independent or original historical investigation there is hardly a 

 trace. There is nowhere any reference to the author's source of 

 information ; nor, indeed, is this necessary for the sort of informa- 

 tion he gives. We are told in the volume chiefly about the opinions 

 which various statesmen have held at one time or another on the 

 tariff, — the sort of historical knowledge which can be got readily 

 enough by glancing through files of presidential messages and of 

 the congressional debates. Even this information, whose value is. 

 dubious enough at best, is distorted and worthless. One would 

 imagine, from Mr. Thompson's quotations and copious Italics, that 

 all the statesmen we ever had were the stiffest of protectionists. 

 Of other information there is very little. Various tariff acts are de- 

 scribed in the vaguest way, so that the reader is unable to guess 

 what the general range of duties under them was, still less what 

 was the duty on any particular article. There is no pretence of 

 investigation of economic histor)-, of the development of protected 

 industries, of the difficult and perhaps insoluble problem as to the 

 effect of protective duties on general prosperity. 



In fact, Mr. Thompson writes, not a history, but a voluminous 

 campaign pamphlet. That he has a strong bias (to put it mildly) for 

 protection, is not inconsistent with his doing good historical work, 

 even though not the best. But he has done no such work, and the 

 student of history' will turn over his chapters with a sigh of disap- 

 pointment. Nor will the book appeal to those who want solid and 

 serious argument on the tariff controversj- The reasoning is of 

 the most water>- sort, and consists chiefly of vague paragraphs on 

 industrial independence, the home market, the disastrous effects of 

 importing more than we export, the designs of England, and what 

 not. Only those who want campaign thunder would find any thing 

 to their purpose ; and they are not the sort to wade through 526 

 pages, when they can get their thunder in compact form, and gratis, 

 from campaign committees. Mr. Thompson's history belongs to 

 that class of books by public men which are bought for their title 

 and their large print by respectable philisline families, and repose 

 unread on scanty book-shelves. 



